Euphoria
by melody t. gatsby
Summary: His heartbeat. Her footsteps. Their breaths.


Title: Euphoria

Status: Ongoing. Three planned separate one-shots with separate plots, if you could call it that, in accordance with corresponding seasons two, three, and nine. This one is season two, though it is meant to essentially happen after the season.

Pairings: Pam x Jim. Very centric, little outside focus.

Warnings: I'm more of an anime fan, but I _have_ marathoned all nine seasons in the past month. I'm pretty sure that people have done this before too, though. I am being 100% honest when I say I haven't read any of the fics here for the show so I did not rip you off if you did something like this, promise!

Comments: Have had this in my head ever since I finished season two, because I needed it. Could only write it in one day in the dead middle of the night, otherwise I'd feel too embarrassed.

-TO-

Shot One: Evanescent (Season Two)

In about three minutes, Jim's microwaveable burrito would be done and he would sit down in front of the television and mindlessly watch Saturday night dramas for four hours. Until then, he could do nothing expect clasp his hands and lean on the counter, alone with his thoughts.

But then, it hurt to be alone, especially with thoughts, so he shifted himself forward and dutifully turned on the TV, retrieved blankets from his bed, and after a moment's hesitation, scarified a rare clean plate to settle on the counter before the microwave beeped and flashed its green numbers.

Jim placed the plate back in the sparsely equipped cabinet. There had been no point in taking it out.

The seconds ticking were a chore to manage. He was consuming time slowly and painstakingly, without leisure. He'd already expelled the tears long ago, and they had come nonstop for five minutes, and he had let them come without snorting or sobbing, and from then on they did not come anymore. He couldn't even have that one gift, that ability to cry over her. In Jim's heart, he had basically lost everything in the world, and it had been done without him noticing for days.

Jim sat down in front of the TV. He was just in time for a COPS marathon. The burrito was hot and annoying and starching the roof of his mouth but he ate on anyways. If he didn't he wasn't going to eat later, and it was really all he could do to at least keep on eating. Once he was finished, he wrapped the blankets loosely around him and curled up like a turtle ready for hibernation. Although it was already eleven, the night was young for him. It was only a Saturday, and he was not nearly as young as he had been.

And then he heard a knock.

Jim froze. His toes clamped around the edge of the couch, and he leaded forward with his ears pealed. Sometimes the middle-aged couple in the apartment downstairs would creak and screech and he could hear muffled voices, but it didn't bother Jim too much, considering he was lucky they weren't having mad sex all the time. If they were, he couldn't hear it.

Another knock. This time Jim knew for certain it was coming from the door. Tentatively, he removed the blankets and side-stepped the rampant trash on the floor. Whoever was daring to bother him right now, at no acceptable time at less, was in no way going to step a step in his apartment.

He rehearsed a sharp quick greeting in his head, a "yes, yes, yes" and "I see" and "thanks, but no thanks" and "no it's fine I was up" even though it was not fine, although he was indeed still awake. And then he opened the door and Pam was standing on his Kermit the Frog welcome mat.

That welcome mat had been bought as a joke, a result of a boyish bet from long ago that he couldn't remember. Jim ran his fingers around the large pockets of his sweatpants and stared at her exposed collarbone, and then raised his eyes painfully to hers.

"Hey."

She was wearing a loose beige shirt with thin fabric, teenagerishly draped around her shoulders and clinging to places Jim was afraid to look at. He swallowed, trying to make it imperceptible, his hand still stretched to the doorknob. He was angled to her face perfectly.

"Hey," he breathed.

"Sorry." She said, almost like a whisper, but not really, more like a soft pillow or a cup of hot chocolate. Jim blinked, and then she repeated in her own voice, "Sorry."

_What the hell are you pulling off here? _Jim didn't say a word. He couldn't manage being this close to her, right now, maybe forever, so he would not say a word.

"Can I come in?"

_No._ Jim ducked his head and let her in.

He ambled along, seeing his couch destination clearly, and focused on it to drive the buzz of blotted confusion. He almost threw himself in the direction of it before realizing he didn't have the heart to.

"Do you want a drink?" He croaked hoarsely, trotting into his confined, cluttered kitchen. The mini-fridge popped open and Jim shivered.

"No." A pause. "Actually, yes. I'd-" and she paused again, and it was if a universe weighed on her words and it was shattering the very length of her-"I'd like one."

Jim easily found two bear bottles and was about to stand up before Pam clarified "Juice, if you have any." Sheepishly, he replaced both the beers back, and wriggled his arm around before fishing out a small pint of apple juice. They were for if his cousin came over, which never really happened, and he jiggled around the carton around in his palms to check for the expiration date. It was in fact, still relatively fresh, so Jim reached out like a monkey and place the carton above which a slosh and whumf.

He lingered there, squatting, for a while, scanning his eyes lifelessly over his range of choice. Pam's presence was killing him softly, and he kept wanting to rush back to her, and do something, and then he remembered crying. So he finally just fixed himself a glass of water and took his time traveling the short distance from the sink to Pam's dewy, Bambi eyes.

_Hullo. You could write a book on How to Torture Lame Salesmen._ He ignored her and stared at the TV.

He could see her looking at him warily, and then the TV blinked off. "That's it?"

"That's what?"

"You're not going to ask me anything?"

He rubbed his clasped fingers around the glass, and shook his head minutely while blinking. "What is there to say?"

Pam looked horrified. Jim imagined her as a deer before a steamrolling car. "_What is there to say?_"

Her voice wasn't insistent, demanding, or disapproving, yet Jim felt shamed even so, and for nothing than that. "Hey, hey, you could have…hm…asked me why I'm here at midnight, or why I want to talk to you, why I rejected you-"and here she had enough sense to stop, and the words hung from the air like thin skin.

Jim reached for the remote. Pam slapped his hand away. Surprised at her audacity, Jim stayed in the position and shot her a glare.

"Fine. What do you think you were going to accomplish here? You've already said sorry, you've already said you're marrying Roy. You've already rejected me. So what. So what? _So what? Why in the hell are you here?_"

And then, Jim thought about stopping, because Pam's face was hurting him and scarring him but he didn't stop, for the same reason he couldn't cry anymore. _"_You know what. I don't care. I don't care anymore. I could shoot myself but I don't care enough to do that."

And none of it was true, but the way Pam's face twisted made Jim feel powerful. And he would have continued, but then he felt water seeping onto the soles of his feet. The glass had slipped, or flipped onto the ground and was smashed completely. Glass bits were collected around his feet, and further down in a stream toward Pam.

Pam was bleeding. One glass bit was nicked into above the delicate skin of her ankle. Jim died halfway inside.

"Oh my God," he rasped, and he lumbered toward her, not noticing that he was stepping onto the glass, and then Pam's arms enfolded him and he stumbled into her. He ended up in a straddle like position, and then he felt Pam's lips on his stomach area, between the thin folds of his old T-shirt.

He was paralyzed, not from Pam's arms which were arched up around his back loosely, but her radiant warmth which was sending him into a trance. He couldn't hear what she was mouthing, and then he could hear it all at once.

_Pleasedon'tgotoStamfordpleasedon'tgotoStamfordpleasedon'tgotopleasedon'tgopleasedon'tgopleasepleasepleaseplease_

And he was screaming inside because she was saying it so desperately and hopefully. He reached for her hair, and suddenly realized that he was almost going to touch her, and her mouth was on his stomach, and he grasped the couch and pushed himself backwards into the coffee table.

He looked back at her, with his legs dangling over the edge. Pam was crying, but not desperately or hopefully. It wasn't a sob, only tears running down, and there was a blankness and wonder etched onto her face as she looked on at the one who pried himself from her arms. He remembered the time he had cried again, even though he didn't want to at all.

"I'm sorry. That wasn't what I wanted to say." Pam said finally, and clearly, after they had stared at one another for ten seconds.

Jim closed his eyes because he didn't want to see her face. "I think you should go."

There was silence for two seconds. And then Jim could hear the crunch of glass against Pam's flats, and he ducked his head down, hoping her soles were thick enough. He picked out glass.

Each piece spurted mildly against his fingers. He couldn't even manage to wince because of the pain. His fingers slipped, feeling around numbly. He could still hear her steps, and then he could hear his heartbeat, and they were strangely in tune. He sent himself into a world where his heartbeat and her steps matched, and they traveled the world together in a second, his heartbeat and her steps and it was perfect.

He reached on to his left foot.

"I broke it off with Roy."

The door closed with a click.

Jim continued picking out the glass. He finished with both feet and turned himself around, away from the glass bits and the TV together.

_Broke…it….I…broke…it….broke…_

Pam had indeed broken his heart. It was what was left on the floor there. That was his heart there, and it was shattered completely as it should be. He slumped, staring off to nothing. He thought about crying for the third time. He wasn't going to sleep tonight; maybe he was never going to sleep again. He placed his hands on his throat and sat there, not thinking at all. In one time and dimension, Jim had already died, and in this one, it certainly felt like he was going to now too.

And then there was a knock.

_Compelling. _If Jim stayed here, he could just die off already, and be reborn. He would be leaving for Scranton in a week, anyways, and then maybe he would be happy again.

At the other side, where was it? What was the other side? Broken glass, for him, his lifetime. Was that what he wanted? How useless was it, was that, was him. If he chose to go there again, to venture without knowing, was he going to be happy?

Maybe.

But maybe not.

Around the world, his heartbeat and her steps had traveled, never to the other side, never to that stray universe.

The sound of his heartbeat. The sound of her steps.

How strangely beautiful was that?

There was beauty in this pain in itself, he could imagine.

Maybe he had already found the most beautiful.

Jim got up. He trudged toward the door, and his blood smeared onto the wooden boards. He hardly noticed it as he opened the door.

Standing on his Kermit doorstep was his angel. Jim blinked, and then he saw Pam, and then he widened his eyes and let go of the doorknob.

They stared at each other. Then, Pam leaned over, and then her lips were on Jim's collarbone. He stayed completely still.

She traced her lips over his throat, where his fingerprints of blood lay. Slowly, she made his way up to his jawline, and then she moved back a little when she reached his lips.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"I think I'm going crazy," Jim whispered, studying her eyes, studying the sky in her eyes.

"Me too."

"It's you."

"I know."

Jim leaned down a centimeter so his forehead was touching hers. "Close the door," he said, sternly.

He could hear their breaths mingling together. They were perfectly in tune.

"Are you sure?"

"Maybe I should be asking you that." They didn't bother to blink.

"I want it."

"Close the door then."

Pam's eyes rolled very slightly. Then she lifted herself off Jim, and stretched a hand out slowly to the door. She flicked her fingers, and the door closed with a click.

[END Evanescent]

-OF-

**Finishing and uploading at 3 AM in the morning? Hell yeah!**

**Thanks for reading.**


End file.
